The disclosures of Michael et al, U.S. Pat. No. 7,150,315, issued Dec. 19, 2006, and Cognata, US 2006/0027362, published Feb. 9, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,255,167 issued Aug. 14, 2007 are incorporated by reference herein.
Hydrocarbon producing wells often produce mixtures of oil, gas and water. The water must be safely disposed of. Often, it is stored in surface tankage on the wellsite and trucked away to a disposal well. The procedure causes great expense, and can cause the well to be shut in if the amount of hydrocarbons being produced does not generate sufficient profits to cover the expense of water disposal. The heavy trucks involved also damage the secondary roads often found in oil and gas producing areas.
There is a need for a system to reduce the amount of water which is produced at the wellhead.
It is an object of this invention to provide a well production system in which three-phase well fluids which enter the well downhole are separated downhole into three separate phases.
It is another object of this invention to provide a well production system in which a separated water phase is injected into a disposal zone downhole without ever being produced on the surface of the wellsite.
It is another object of this invention to provide a well production control system to insure that the produced oil stream at the wellhead contains only minor amounts of water and that the water disposal stream downhole contains only minor amounts of oil.